The advent of communication networks, such as the Internet has substantially increased the availability of information to people, about employment and education prospects overseas or outside their state of residence. As a result, it is a common occurrence in the modern day scenario for people to migrate for the purposes of employment, education and the like.
In such a scenario, the institution in the country or state in which education or employment is sought performs a check to confirm the authenticity of copies of the documents provided for the purpose of entry. In order to perform the check, it is necessary that a third party attest the copies of the related documentation. The third party is conventionally an agency, which has been authorized beforehand, to perform the task of authentication.
Prior to the advent of the communication networks, such as the Internet, the procedure for attesting a document for the purpose of authentication is performed manually. Initially, the user who intends to seek employment or education prospects from an institution obtains photocopies of the original documents, which are required to be authenticated. Further, the documents that are required to be authenticated are submitted to the third party, which has been authorized to perform the task of authentication, beforehand. After the third party performs the attestation of the photocopies of the certificate, the user submits the photocopies of the certificate to the institution, which intends to perform the process of confirming the authenticity of the photocopies of the documents. The institution employs an external agency to determine if the documents are authentic. If the documents are determined to be authentic by the external agency, the organization is intimated by the external agency. If the documents are authentic, the organization approves the user for the education or employment. However, if the documents are not found to be authentic, the organization rejects the user for the education or employment. As a result, this procedure of performing authentication of documents by attesting them manually is cumbersome. Further, the procedure of performing authentication of documents by attesting them manually is time consuming.
A few proposals exist in the art in which, the attesting of the document is performed in an electronic mode.
For instance, a proposal in the art reveals a method for preparing safe electronic notarized documents in electronic commerce. The proposal disclosed therein, describes a method for preparing a safe electronic notarized document in electronic commerce and primarily includes the steps of preparing a primary electronic notarized document, based on transaction detail information, a customer certificate, a merchant certificate, a notarizing organization certificate, and a certifying organization certificate by a notarizing organization.
Subsequently, a digital signature is affixed to the primary notarized document by using a private key of the notarizing organization so as to form a secondary electronic notarized document, and transmitting the secondary electronic notarized document to a customer or a merchant. Further, the secondary electronic notarized document of the first step is decoded by the customer or merchant by using a private key of the notarizing organization.
Furthermore, a digital signature is affixed on the decoded secondary electronic notarized document of the second step by the customer or merchant by using a private key of his or her own so as to form a tertiary electronic notarized document, and transmitting the tertiary electronic notarized document to the notarizing organization. Thereafter, decoding the tertiary electronic notarized document of the third step is performed by using an open key of the notarizing organization and an open key of the customer or merchant so as to form a biquadratic electronic notarized document, and comparing the biquadratic electronic notarized document with the primary electronic notarized document of the first step.
A final electronic notarized document is subsequently created for proving a realization of notarization of the transaction by utilizing the digitally signed tertiary electronic notarized document of the third step and the digitally signed message digest of the fifth step, and sending the final electronic notarized document to the customer or merchant; and storing the final electronic notarized document of the sixth step by the customer or merchant after receipt of it from the notarizing organization.
Yet another proposal in the art reveals an electronic notary. The system has application in the electronic verification process. The operation can be described as comprising the following steps: whenever there is a need for verifying a document, one can transmit the document image through FAX or computer network to an independent third party institute or company. The company can process the document image by locking the document image and extracting the pictorial and texture features, then encrypt these features, time stamp, place, and the items needed to be verified into a machine readable mage code.
Yet another proposal in the art reveals a method in which, after inputting all of the required information, the customer uploads the electronic document to an electronic document repository. An electronic transaction manager determines when all of the required information from each of the parties is present and amalgamates all of the information into a single final electronic document. The parties required to execute the electronic document are notified that the electronic document is ready to be electronically signed and electronically notarized. The signatories go to a notary public or a mobile notary public may travel to a location designated by the requesting signatory. The signatory inputs a manual, hand-written signature to the electronic document, using a electronic signature capture input device. The notary public inputs a manual, hand-written signature to the electronic document, using the electronic signature capture input device.
Yet another proposal in the art, reveals methods and systems to authenticate that an original digital record has not been altered, methods and systems for affixing electronic signatures to such digital records, for verifying integrity and validity of such records and any electronic signature(s) applied thereto, including determining that such records and any associated digital signatures have not been altered, and more specifically, for providing a distributed method and system for such determination and authentication in which the contents of these records need not be disclosed.
The proposals in the art provide a solution to the aforesaid requirement of attesting a document by electronic means. However, the proposals in the art do not reveal a simple mechanism by which, a user can upload the scanned documents of his original certificates at a location such as a website and an attestation and online sharing of the document can be performed by electronic means.
Proposals in the art do not reveal a method and system, in which a user who requires the attestation and online sharing of the document is capable of doing so, by a less cumbersome method.
Proposals in the art do not reveal a method and system, in which a user who requires the attestation and online sharing of document to be performed is capable of doing so, by a less time consuming method.
Proposals in the art do not reveal a method and system, in which a user who requires the attestation and online sharing of document to be performed is capable of doing so by a simple and user-friendly method, even though the mode used is electronic.